Subrata Ghosh received his BSc (Chemistry Hons) and MSc (Organic Chemistry special) degrees from the University of Calcutta. He did his PhD work at Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science under the supervision of Late Professor UR Ghatak and received PhD degree from the University of Calcutta. He was a postdoctoral fellow (1979-1981 and 1984-1986) at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, USA under the supervision of Professor Robert G Salomon.
Academic and Research Contributions: Professor Ghosh has made significant contributions in the emerging areas of organic synthesis on complex bio-active natural products of contemporary interests. His notable contribution is the development of novel routes towards the bridged-ring skeleton of the anticancer drug taxol. He has experimentally settled the longstanding puzzling issue of the role of steric effect vs. secondary orbital interaction in Diels-Alder cycloaddition reactions and established that the steric effect is of more importance than the secondary orbital interaction in determining the endo-exo selectivity. He has extensively exploited copper (I) catalysed photocycloaddition reaction of unactivated 1,6-dienes for facile stereocontrolled synthesis of several complex cyclopentanoid natural products. This technique has made a global impact and has been used by other chemists for accomplishing total synthesis of molecules which are otherwise difficult to achieve. Professor Ghosh has made impressive contribution in the area of asymmetric synthesis employing nature’s chiral pool e.g. carbohydrates. Notable contribution in this area include development of economical routes to anti-HIV drug (-)-carbovir, anti-inflammatory agent (-)-bacillariolide I and neurotrophic agent (-)-talaumidin. His recent contributions include elegant application of olefin metathesis in developing single-step protocols for accessing the highly complex structures present in natural products such as ingenol, guanacastepenes, umbellactal, schisandra nor-triterpenoids etc. His contributions in developing novel methodologies in the domain of natural products synthesis of contemporary interests are amply documented in the current literatures. He has authored a Chapter in CRC Handbook of Organic Photochemistry and Photobiology.
Other contributions: Ghosh has been a member of the Editorial Board of Journal of Chemical Sciences. He has served as a Member in DST Management Advisory Committee for young Scientists (1999-2003) and Program Advisory Committee for Organic Chemistry (2004-2007). He has served as Dean (Academic/Administration) at IACS (2009-2012). He is a member of the Chemistry Sectional Committee of Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore and a Council Member in National Organic Chemistry Symposium Trust.
Awards and Honours: Prof. Ghosh has been awarded with Professor Anjanulu 60th Birthday Commemoration Silver Medal of Indian Chemical Society (2001) and a Bronze Medal of Chemical Research Society of India (2004). He is a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore. He was a DST Ramanna Fellow (2007-2010). He is a recipient of the DST JC Bose National Fellowship (2012).
